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United States Patent | 6,041,308 |
Walker ,   et al. | March 21, 2000 |
A system and method are disclosed for encouraging buyers to submit CPOs to a CPO management system for a desired product. The CPO management system processes each received CPO to determine whether one or more sellers are willing to accept a given CPO. The disclosed CPO management system compensates buyers if the buyer's conditional purchase offer is rejected, or expires before an acceptance is received. If a CPO is rejected by the sellers, or has expired before an acceptance is received, the CPO management system evaluates one or more stored compensation offers to determine if the buyer is eligible for rejection compensation. The compensation offers may optionally require that the conditional purchase offer satisfies one or more additional predefined eligibility criteria. If the predefined criteria is met, the rejection compensation is provided to the buyer. The rejection compensation can include, for example, (i) a cash award, (ii) a prize, or (iii) a coupon or credit that may be redeemed for a discount against future transactions, thereby encouraging future use.
Inventors: | Walker; Jay S. (Ridgefield, CT); Case; T. Scott (Darien, CT); Hartmann; Tracy (Stamford, CT); Tedesco; Daniel E. (New Canaan, CT) |
Assignee: | priceline.com Incorporated (Stamford, CT) |
Appl. No.: | 205787 |
Filed: | December 4, 1998 |
Current U.S. Class: | 705/14; 705/1; 705/26 |
Intern'l Class: | G06F 019/00 |
Field of Search: | 705/14,1,5,13,15,26,27,37,35,38 295/226,228,236,237,239 340/825.3 |
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